


How Soon Is Now?

by Tommykaine



Series: Hang the DJ [10]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Challenge Response, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Inspired by Roleplay/Roleplay Adaptation, Introspection, M/M, Maritombola Challenge, Past Abuse, Past Domestic Violence, Past Sexual Abuse, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Hatred, Sex as self harm (implied)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-16 06:27:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,915
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29077842
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tommykaine/pseuds/Tommykaine
Summary: Adrian goes out to party, forget about his shitty ex-boyfriend, and maybe find love again, but things don't quite go as intended...
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Hang the DJ [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1014486
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	How Soon Is Now?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MarielleThorn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarielleThorn/gifts).



> This was written for the Maritombola Challenge 2020, using the prompt "How Soon Is Now? - The Smiths".
> 
> This is also an introspective piece inspired by the backstory of a character from one of my roleplays. Adrian's abusive ex-boyfriend (Lawrence) shows up in another one of my stories, here: [X](https://archiveofourown.org/works/28959525)

Adrian was looking around, trying to take in the sights and the sounds of the club.

The music was loud and the dance floor was already pretty crowded. He normally hated to come to a party early, but maybe this time he should have, even just to get used to the place.

He had headed straight to the bar as soon as he came in, after handing his jacket to the coat check by the entrance. The cocktail he bought was overpriced, but of acceptable quality. He was sipping on it fast, trying to get buzzed so that he could get through the night more easily.

It was his first time going out like that since… _well_. He went there exactly not to have to think about _that._ And, to try and find someone to spend the night with.

 _“Where would a gay guy go to find love in this city? Or a good dicking at least_?” he’d asked the internet, and aside from a few suggestions that amounted to _“just go on Grindr, lol”_ , the local online gay community seemed to have agreed that his best bet was to go to the Silver Queen. A gay club that wasn’t quite just a cruising place, but was known to have a high likelihood of meeting other single gays – or gays who were open to adventures regardless of their relationship status.

Adrian had been feeling pretty good about his chances before he got there. He’d put on one of his best shirts – that Lawrence had bought for him, but that wasn’t gonna stop him from getting laid in it – and tight jeans that showed off his best assets, pun intended. He was pushing thirties but he looked younger, he had a handsome face, he worked out, hell he’d just been to the hairdresser the other week. He’d never had trouble finding guys to bring back home for some fun, and maybe something more after that. He had no reason to be nervous.

So why, why was he feeling so… uneasy? Almost as if he wasn’t supposed to be there.

Downing his cocktail, Adrian dropped the plastic glass into the nearest bin and considered jumping on the dance floor to see if he caught anyone’s eye, or if anyone caught his so that he could then try to get their attention. He wasn’t feeling like it, though, not yet. Maybe after another drink. But he didn’t want to go back to the bar right away. That was kind of…

_You drunken whore._

Yeah. He wasn’t gonna do that.

Slowly making his way through the crowd, Adrian went to rest against a wall and watched two guys that were dancing together. They seemed to be having the time of their life. Were they lovers? Friends? Maybe a bit of both?

Adrian wished he could have gone there with friends. He hadn’t quite managed to meet anyone he clicked with so far. Then again, he hadn’t been there long. He’d just moved to that city… when was it again? Four months earlier, maybe? More like three and a half. As for his old friends, well, he hadn’t exactly been on speaking terms with them even before he moved.

Lawrence had never liked any of his friends. Not even a single one. And he should have known better, really, he shouldn’t have trusted him so easily, or given him to his shitty emotional blackmail and ultimatums. He had tried to get back in touch with a few of them before he tailed but, well, he wasn’t exactly surprised when they either ghosted him or outright told him to get fucked. Fair enough, he guessed, he would have done the same if a friend had treated him like he’d done with them. Trusting some new guy’s word over theirs, or telling them they couldn’t hang out anymore ‘cause his boyfriend would get too jealous, and clearly he’d rather be a shitty friend than get dumped.

So yeah, he was alone, and he was there alone, and that was the entire point really. He hated it and he wanted not to be so damn alone at least for one night. Even if it meant getting drunk and getting fucked by the first passably hot dude who gave him any attention.

At least, he _hoped_ he was alone. A part of him almost expected to turn around and find Lawrence there, at some point during the night. It wouldn’t have been the first time, right?

_He can’t find me here. He doesn’t even know I’m here._

That was the entire fucking point of moving to some random city where he didn’t know anyone and to which he had absolutely no connections whatsoever. He’d planned this. He’d been careful, verging on paranoid really.

_He’s probably still pissed._

Adrian wasn’t sure of whether the thought scared or amused him more. One thing was certain, the bastard had it coming.

Even if he had pretty much leeched off of him for years with nothing in return but his ass and his poor attempt at being a househusband of sorts, a trophy husband Lawrence could show off to his acquaintances. So he’d pretty much been a whore, except he’d genuinely loved the guy. At least at first…or Hell, maybe he still did.

Adrian wasn’t quite sure of what he felt for Lawrence anymore. He’d come to terms with the fact that the guy was an asshole but he missed him, he missed him so damn much sometimes. Not the beatings, or the shouting, or the nasty words, or… well, most things, really. But he missed being held by him, he missed when he called him his pretty little pet and kissed him so gently, when he made love to him, when he praised him for somehow managing to meet his impossibly high standards.

The thought of actually seeing him again was enough to give him nightmares, but somehow he still missed him.

_Maybe you’re just fucked up._

Scowling at himself, Adrian headed to the bar again. Fuck it, he’d get that second drink. He was too sober for that shit.

_Maybe I should just get fucking wasted._

It was an enticing thought. As he got his second drink and started sipping on it right away, Adrian’s mind lingered on the idea.

He could get absolutely shitfaced, blackout drunk, and probably wake up in someone else’s bed. Hopefully someone he’d still find hot enough to try and get a second round out of them, if the hangover wasn’t too bad. But the thought didn’t sit right with him. He didn’t just want to bang, he wanted to be held, and he wanted to remember it.

Also, he still remembered the last time he got that drunk. He remembered going home to Lawrence in tears, and Lawrence looking at him with a disdainful sneer.

“Serves you right for being a drunken whore,” he’d said. Then, he’d beat his still-bleeding ass and-

Suddenly, Adrian felt like he wanted to puke.

He rushed through the crowd, earning himself quite a few angry shouts and curses, shouldering people by accident, spilling half of his drink and managing to push his way out of the closest door and keel over by the nearest bush as he threw up. He heard a couple laughs and a “dude, you ok?” but he ignored them, his heart beating fast and his skin cold, and not just because he was outside at night in a t-shirt.

_Fuck. Why’d you have to remember that shit?_

It took him several minutes to calm down, panting and spitting a few times to try and get rid of the acidic aftertaste before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, hair sticking to his sweaty forehead. He downed the rest of his drink and abandoned the glass on the first available surface. He was shivering from the cold, but at least the chilly air helped him clear up his head.

Heading back inside, he made his way to the bathroom to wash his face and rinse his mouth. Glancing up, he grimaced at his own reflection.

_Get a fucking grip._

It wasn’t the first time he freaked out like that. He hated when it happened in public. Well, he hated it in general. He didn’t always throw up, but it still fucking sucked.

After drinking some water from the tap and drying his face and hands with some paper towels from the dispenser, Adrian went back to the bar to get another drink. The second one didn’t count, since he’d spilled at least half of it on the floor.

Sipping on his rum and coke, he moved away from the bar to leave space to the others who wanted to drink, leisurely walking around and looking at the other guys. A tall drag queen with a bright red wig was talking to an almost-equally-tall leatherman who looked like he’d stepped straight out of a Tom of Finland illustration. A tan, shirtless guy with blond curls caught his eye for a moment, but another man had his arm around his shoulders so he was probably off-limits. A redhead with impressive long dreadlocks was chatting with a dark-skinned man with a very nice set of shoulders and arms. Though maybe he was a little too muscular for Adrian’s liking.

Adrian’s tastes were somewhere in the middle. He wasn’t fond of semi-jailbait twinks, neither was he the greatest fan of bears. He liked guys with a little muscle, or a more lean physique, and an attractive, masculine face with well-proportioned features. A little scruff was fine, but he didn’t like big bushy beards. Hair or eye color was relatively indifferent to him, same with ethnicity, but if the guy had glasses it was definitely a plus. He also tended to go for men who were older than himself, though he wasn’t entirely sure of whether that was a preference or not.

His gaze stopped on a tall man in a shirt with mid-length hair and he froze up, his heart racing and thumping in his ears. He was frozen in place as the other turned around, but relief washed over him instantly as he saw his face. It was not Lawrence.

_Fuck. Stop being so damn tense._

He needed a place to sit down. He found one by a table, next to a group of people he didn’t know but who didn’t mind him taking up the seat. Maybe they saw that he seemed shaken, or maybe they just didn’t care. Adrian idly listened to what little of their conversation he could overhear over the music as he continued to drink. Half of his glass was empty and he was starting to feel a light buzz from the alcohol. Maybe after the next one he would get on the dance floor, _if_ he could avoid having a fucking full-blown panic attack and ruining the whole evening. Maybe it was a good thing he’d come alone, even if sitting there and listening to the animated chat of the group next to him was making him feel even lonelier.

He wasn’t sure if coming there had been a good idea, really. On one hand he’d missed it, he’d missed going out and partying, he’d missed this reassuring feeling of being surrounded by other people from the community. A small smile rose to his face as he realized, he might be able to go to Pride that year.

Ironically enough for someone who had far too much pride, Lawrence never wanted anything to do with the event. He considered it “garish” and “a senseless freakshow”. He was the kind of gay man who prided in the fact that he was not effeminate and that he didn’t “flaunt it”, aside from showing off his latest boy-toy at social events. In fact, one of his reasons for making Adrian cut ties with his friend Jamal was that Jamal was a part-time drag queen and Lawrence did not want either of them to be associated with “that sort of thing”.

By the time he’d finished his drink, he was feeling a lot less anxious – the correlation between these two things was likely more than just incidental – and he got up from his temporary seat. Not that he minded the company but it was kind of awkward. If he’d been drunker, maybe he would have tried to butt in and befriend the group. Well, in his normal state at least.

He wasn’t tipsy enough to feel comfortable dancing yet, but he also didn’t want to chug drink after drink and accidentally get wasted because he didn’t give himself time to process the alcohol. Though wandering around the club was starting to get quite boring, so he went to stand by one of the walls, after getting further away from the DJ booth.

As he stood there, he kept looking around and just taking in the atmosphere of the place. It was a nice place. He could tell he normally would be having the time of his life. Dancing, drinking and chatting up strangers. Making new friends, and maybe something more than that.

Yes, normally he would be in his element, so… why? Why was he so uneasy? Why couldn’t he just get into it, let loose like he always would?

 _Maybe I just need to drink more_ , he thought, but then a sly, callous voice that resembled Lawrence’s to an uncomfortable degree whispered something in the back of his mind.

_Isn’t that your solution for everything? Getting drunk, turning your mind off, and spreading your legs for the first guy who gives you any sort of attention?_

Adrian clenched his fists, fighting back the bitter feeling that threatened to overtake him.

_So what if it is? I’m my own fucking person. I’m free to fuck whoever I damn please. I am an adult, I am single and I’m not hurting anyone._

Even so, he couldn’t help but wonder if coming there had really been the right idea. Maybe he wasn’t in the mood for it. Maybe that wasn’t what he needed.

_So what is it that I need?_

He… had no answer to that question.

_See? Might as well fucking try. I’ll never get myself out there if I keep on holing myself up in my house out of fear of… what? That Lawrence could be hiding behind every corner?_

Or maybe it wasn’t Lawrence he feared… or at least, not _just_ Lawrence.

How many guys had he had before him, that didn’t quite come close to his level of deviousness but who still didn’t treat him like he should have been treated?

Yes, he hadn’t exactly been the perfect boyfriend either. Yes, he had cheated on them too, he had yelled at them, he hadn’t exactly been the type to lie down and take it. But Lawrence hadn’t been the first one to hit him or force him to do things he wouldn’t have wanted to do. He hadn’t been the first one to fuck him into submission, or to use sex to humiliate him. He hadn’t been the first one to-

_Was it really rape? Can you really say that? Didn’t you fucking cum from it, more than once?_

Adrian wasn’t sure of what to expect, really. Of why he expected to come there and find anything different rather than more of the same. Hadn’t every guy he’d dated for any considerable amount of time turned out to be some kind of asshole? Which begged the question: if he was the common denominator in all of those situations, wasn’t it most likely that _he_ was the problem?

What was it about him that seemed to attract assholes, then? Did he have some kind of target painted on his back, was there something about his face that just screamed ‘ _yes please, I’d like to be treated like shit’_? Or, conversely, did decent guys just sense that something was wrong with him and avoided him like the plague?

_Enough of this._

He didn’t know how much time had passed since the last drink. He didn’t fucking care.

This wasn’t how he was expecting to spend the evening, but _fuck it_. If he had to shut his stupid brain with excessive amounts of alcohol then that was what he would do.

Once he’d obtained another drink – he wasn’t even sure it was the one he asked for, since it had been pretty much impossible to hear each other with how loud the current song was, but at that point all he cared for was the fact that it had enough alcohol in it – he went outside again, this time to try and bum a smoke. He wasn’t exactly a smoker, but he often did smoke a cigarette or two when he went out drinking.

Since he was at it, he tried to see if any of the local smokers caught his eye. He eventually decided to go for a tall guy with dark hair and a few too many piercings, maybe, but they kind of suited his face. He was standing against a wall and smoking by himself, looking pensive.

Adrian approached him confidently, smiling at him, and when the guy smiled back he made his request.

“Hey there, mind if I bum a cigarette?”

“Sure thing, baby,” the man replied, opening his pack and handing one out to him, before offering him his lighter. He had a slight accent, though Adrian wasn’t quite sure he could identify it. From his skin tone and features he would have guessed Hispanic, but it didn’t _sound_ Hispanic.

“Where are you from?” he asked before he could stop himself, the alcohol making his tongue looser as usual.

Thankfully, the man chuckled in response.

“I’m Australian, mate.”

“Oh!” Adrian replied, surprised. He lit up his cigarette, then handed the lighter back to him. “I’ve never been to Australia.”

“Wouldn’t recommend it, unless you’ve got a thing for snakes. And huge fucking spiders,” the man replied with another laugh. “They’re everywhere.”

“I’m Adrian, by the way.”

“Nice to meet’ya. I’m Ethan.”

The guy shook his hand. He had a nice, firm handshake. He also had a tattoo on his wrist. Some kind of kanji, from the looks of it.

“How long have you been here?”

“A couple months. It’s not bad. I miss the beach but eh, at least there’s no sharks here.”

Adrian laughed at the joke, a little too loudly maybe. He sipped on his drink before talking again.

“I haven’t been here long either. I’ve moved away.”

“Oh? So where were you then?”

“Not too far, definitely not as far as Australia,” Adrian replied with a chuckle. “I just… needed to get away from it all. A fresh start.”

“Hmm. I understand. I came here for work,” Ethan said. “I work in IT. I didn’t like my previous job, and I wanted to go elsewhere. I’d never been away from my country, not even for a school trip. So when I got an interview for a job here, I figured _why not_?” He shrugged, putting out his cigarette in an abandoned glass on the floor and straightening his back. “Well, time to get back inside. It was nice meeting ya, Adrian.”

“Going already?” Adrian asked, surprised and a bit disappointed.

“Yeah, my boyfriend’s inside,” Ethan replied with an almost apologetic smile, as if he’d guessed he’d given the wrong impression to him. “But it’s been nice. Maybe I’ll see you around, if you come again.”

“Yeah… maybe.”

Adrian forced himself to smile back and waved, sighing and leaning back against the wall once he saw Ethan disappear inside.

_Damn. Of course… just my luck._

His mood immediately dropped. If anything, he was almost feeling _worse_. And, now that he was alone, he was noticing how cold it was so he hurried to finish his cigarette, going back inside with his half-finished drink.

He really was in no mood to dance. He doubted that drinking more would change that.

He found a free spot to linger by a wall and idly looked at the crowd, watching a small group of lesbians – so it wasn’t a complete sausagefest, huh – who were chatting animatedly, though of course he couldn’t hear them over the sound of the music. He could tell from their body language and gestures that two of them were trying to convince the others to go dance, but the others seemed to be stalling.

_I wonder what Clara is doing right now._

Clara might have taken his sorry ass back if he apologized to her and admitted he’d been a shitty friend. She had always been way too good to him, putting up with his bullshit for that long. If they weren’t both far too gay, they probably would have been one of those typical couples that take forever to get the hint and start dating after pining for each other for years. He _did_ try to date her in high school, but she saw right through his pathetic _denial-what-is-denial_ - _I’m-totally-gonna-be-heterosexual-from-now-on_ act right away. It had been right after Tony had dumped him for not wanting to have sex yet, and he’d been convinced that he would never be gay and have a genuine loving relationship.

Clara had definitely helped him a lot through his whole coming out stage, especially after his brother told him he never wanted to have anything to do with him anymore if he was ‘going to be a faggot’, as he’d so delicately put it. He’d felt awful about ghosting her, but Lawrence always had things his way and she got on his bad side by once commenting to Adrian that the way his boyfriend was acting was ‘kind of suffocating’ and by validating his complaints about Lawrence and telling him he was right to be upset. It wasn’t like Lawrence had openly forbid him from talking to her, but he wouldn’t stop breathing down his neck and insisting on reading his chats with her and obsessing over the fact that she’d talked shit about him behind his back if he met her somewhere, and whenever they met he always made it clear she wasn’t a welcome presence, until finally Adrian had caved in and distanced himself from her for the sake of keeping peace.

Had he known that it would only be the start of Lawrence’s efforts to isolate him from all his friends out of his obsessive jealousy and because he was a control freak, he never would have done it, but by the time he realized that he was already pretty much alone.

_Fuck, I wish she was here._

He almost felt like crying for a moment. He took out his phone, opening one of his online profiles. He’d set them all as private and pretty much deleted everything from them, but he could still look up other people.

It wasn’t hard to find Clara. For a long moment he was tempted to add her to his friends again, but he resisted the urge and went to take a look at what publicly visible from her profile. He scrolled through her photos, smiling when he saw that she got another tattoo. He saw a few pictures with an unknown woman – a new girlfriend? It was always hard to tell with lesbians since women were touchy feely with their friends too – and one at a party from a few weeks earlier.

His guilt and nostalgia only got worse as he tried to gauge what was going on in her life since they lost contact, feeling a bit like some kind of pervert trying to peek from a keyhole to see as much as he could through a locked door. Was she missing him too, at all? Would she be happy if he contacted her? Surely she would be glad to hear he was alive at the very least but...

_What would be the point? 'Hello, sorry for not getting back to you, I've finally ditched that asshole... well, no actually we still can't hang out because I've actually moved to a completely different city without even telling you so yeah'. Might as well not write anything at all._

Closing the app, he put the phone back in his pocket and finished the last sip of his drink. He could feel he was tipsy. He could feel he was less coordinated as he walked, swaying a little.

He glanced at the dance floor. He didn't feel even the slightest impulse to go join the rest of the crowd.

_I... should just go home._

Making his way to the exit, Adrian collected his jacket again and forced himself to smile at the guy at the entrance.

"Had fun?"

"Yeah..." he replied with all the conviction he could muster, letting out a small laugh. "Goodnight!"

"Goodnight! Get home safely!"

"Thanks."

Zipping up his jacket, Adrian shivered from the cold and idly wished he'd put on something warmer or that he'd brought a scarf with him at least as he started walking home. It wasn't exactly close, but it was reasonably close to be able to get there by foot. He was tired but he really didn't feel like calling a taxi. He didn't want to force himself to make small talk to some stranger even if just for a couple minutes, he felt too miserable and really, he just wanted to get home and take a shower and curl up in bed. Alone.

_Fuck..._

By the time he got back, he was exhausted and depressed and almost didn't even want to shower. Once he opened the door to his apartment, Sheherazade greeted him with a series of loud meows before rubbing against his legs as he locked the door.

"Have you been a good girl?" Adrian asked her as he leaned down to scratch her behind her hears and give her furry back a few strokes, a small tired smile on his lips. At least someone was happy to see him.

"Daddy's gonna take a shower," he announced as he got up, and he forced himself to peel all the layers of clothes off of himself, scattering them on the floor on his way to the bathroom.

The small black cat followed him there, but she kept her distance once he opened the shower and turned the water on, fiddling with the temperature levels. She'd already learned at her expense not to try and get into the shower with him.

"Hope you didn't climb on the curtains while I wasn't here," he said, testing the water temperature with his hand a few times until it felt warm enough before stepping in and closing the shower. Sheherazade replied with a small meow and jumped on the closed toilet, before jumping on the washing machine. He could see her blurry figure through the glass and wondered idly if she was watching him or just looking around. He'd gotten used to living with a small voyeur, though he still kicked her out of the bathroom when he had to use the toilet. He was very glad he adopted her, because she made living alone so much more tolerable. Sure, she couldn't actually talk back or understand what he said, but at least he had someone to talk to without feeling crazy.

"I had one Hell of a night, Sher," he told her as he soaped up. "And the saddest thing is, nothing fucking happened."

He almost wanted to laugh. That was probably one of his worst nights out, and he'd had... some pretty fucked up party experiences. At least that time he woke up with his pants down and a killer headache in some back alley he'd felt angry rather than... sad and pathetic.

He didn't even realize he'd started crying until he found himself choking up, at which point he couldn't stop himself from sobbing. At least no one was there to see him – no one that would judge him.

He remembered the time he talked to Clara, after she'd rejected him and he'd come clean to her about being gay once she made it clear she'd already guessed and she didn't mind. He remembered her telling him it wouldn't always be that hard. That being gay didn't mean putting up with whoever found you even slightly desirable and being willing to let them fuck you in exchange for love and affection.

He remembered her telling him that he would find someone who loved him and didn't mind waiting, that he wouldn't always be alone.

"Maybe you were wrong," he whispered, and he sobbed louder, curling up on himself and sliding down on the floor, hiding his face against his knees.

Maybe Lawrence was right. Maybe he really couldn't do better. Maybe he just didn't deserve to be loved, because he was too much of a mess, because no one would be putting up with his shit if not horny bastards looking for an easy lay, or assholes who wanted a compliant bitch who was dumb enough to not mind being treated like shit as long as they sometimes pretended to actually care.

And, thinking that, Adrian felt so desperate and worthless that he really just wanted to curl up and die.

\---

_There's a club, if you'd like to go_

_You could meet somebody who really loves you_

_So you go and you stand on your own, and you leave on your own_

_And you go home and you cry and you want to die_

[How Soon Is Now? – The Smiths]

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this story, please leave a comment <3 I always try to respond to them (unless you'd rather not, in which case then put "hush" somewhere in your comment) even if it might take me a while.


End file.
